


The Crooked Kind

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Suits (US TV), White Collar
Genre: Gen, Mike and Mozzie are cousins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: “Hey, Mozzie,” Mike greets. He pitches his voice a little higher and replies to himself with a goofy twang, “Well, howdy, Mike! What brings my favorite cousin by on this fine morning?”“You’re my only cousin,” Mozzie corrects. He jabs a finger in Mike’s direction. “And I’ve never said ‘howdy’ in my life. Except for that thing in Texas, but those were dire circumstances and I scrubbed the footage afterward.”





	The Crooked Kind

**Author's Note:**

> I started haunting the Suits Kink Meme for inspiration because I’m obsessed with writing these jerks and ran across a prompt asking to see Mike and Mozzie as cousins. I’d like to do something more long format with this idea, but figured I might as well start with a short series of scenes to see if I could even get them successfully interacting.
> 
> These are the fruits of that labor. 
> 
> Title is from a song of the same name, by Radical Face, which opens with some particularly appropriate lyrics for this concept, quoted in the fic below.
> 
> Unbeta’ed, as always. Enjoy!
> 
>  **ETA:** Didn’t love my summary so I swapped it with actual fic content.

_I heard you telling lies,_

_I heard you say you weren’t born of our blood,_

_I know we’re the crooked kind,_

_But you’re crooked too, boy, and it shows_

 

_***_

 

 

The morning after Lola Jensen accosts him in his apartment, Mike spends four city blocks expounding to Harvey her threat to go public with the truth about their - admittedly, ill-advised and somewhat poorly executed - ploy if they don’t let her continue siphoning funds off of daddy’s company undisturbed.

“You seem remarkably unconcerned about this,” he observes, when his dire warning fails to raise any hint of alarm in the other man.

Harvey sips at his street-cart coffee and flashes Mike a long-suffering look over his offensively attractive smirk as he outlines a theory: that Lola will never blow their cover because she secretly wants to mend fences with her father. Mike, he explains, just has to figure out a way to facilitate that reconciliation.

“It’s easy,” Harvey assures, turning on his heel and continuing down the sidewalk at a brisk stride without waiting for Mike to respond. Not for the first time since they met, Mike considers the possibility that Harvey might actually be unhinged.

While Mike appreciates Harvey’s confidence in his abilities, he’s also beginning to realize that Harvey’s view of reality may not be quite as clear as Mike’s is. He’s not exactly ground-level anymore, with his high rise penthouse and even higher rise office. Mike supposes a bit of untethering is only to be expected when a man becomes too well-insulated from the hard truths of existence by exorbitant piles of questionably procured money. Trevor had been headed that way, too, before his debts caught up with him and Harvey loaded him onto a bus headed for Bumfuck Nowhere.

Mike decides instantly that he’ll be taking that comparison to his grave, in part because he’d like to keep all his teeth, but mostly because he’s still foolishly nursing dreams of one day wearing Harvey’s defenses down far enough to get into his pants, and openly drawing parallels between Harvey and his lovable fuck-up of a best friend is a fast ticket to nothing but spiteful celibacy for all parties involved.

As Mike hasn’t been settled into his current financial bracket long enough for it to warp his perception, still so unused to having his rent auto-drafted with any reliability that he wakes up some nights terrified he’s forgotten to pay and is mere moments from being evicted, he respectfully disagrees with Harvey’s assessment. Lola may want to fix things with her father - Mike couldn’t presume to know, for sure - but she’s bitter and self-righteous enough that he absolutely believes that if he doesn’t concede to her demands she’ll pull the trigger on him in a fit of pique before swanning her way into a women’s facility somewhere upstate, patting herself on the back as she goes.

He’s forced into an awkward, loping jog in order to scurry after Harvey without looking completely undignified while doing so, not that Harvey seems to notice or care.

The problem isn’t that Lola found him out - somebody was bound to eventually, and it’s almost a relief, though Mike was hoping to get more than a few solid months out of this charade. The more prevalent issue is that Mike was stupid enough not to think of covering his digital tracks in the first place. For a guy with a photographic memory, it’s a hell of a thing to forget. Granted, Mike is no hacker, but he could have at least made an effort. Their subterfuge might still be biting him in the ass right now, but it would probably be slightly less embarrassing than having a spoiled co-ed computer whiz flounce into his apartment in the middle of the night and take him firmly by the balls with hardly any effort whatsoever.

“Harvey, I don’t think you’re really _listening_ , here - ” Mike starts, but Harvey raises a hand to cut him off.

“You’re right,” he agrees, stalking purposefully through the front doors of the building that houses all fourteen slightly scattered floors of Pearson Hardman. “I’m not, because you’re not saying anything worth hearing.”

He doesn’t so much as turn to peer over his shoulder until he steps into an empty elevator car, where he sweeps around in an elegant half-circle and leans against the railing with the detachedly regal air of a king growing rapidly bored of his jester. It feels like a practiced move, which seems like the kind of thing Harvey might do on slow weekends, the melodramatic peacock. Mike is distantly horrified at the fond heat that stirs in his belly at the thought.

“If she talks - ” he tries again, reaching out to bar the doors, arms spread wide and palms curled prohibitively over either side. Harvey rolls his eyes and scowls, thoroughly exasperated. A fierce, wanting shiver scrapes up Mike’s spine.

“She won’t,” Harvey says curtly. “Especially if you make sure she has something else to focus on, instead. Like, for example, rebuilding her relationship with her estranged father.”

“I’m not a therapist, Harvey.”

“No, you’re a lawyer,” Harvey snaps. Goosebumps erupt down the back of Mike’s neck. “So stop being a pussy and go push until it hurts.”

He reaches out to jab at one of the buttons on the panel and Mike accepts that as his cue to step back. Harvey doesn’t offer any last minute reassurances or hilariously apt movie quotes as the doors glide closed, just raises his eyebrows and makes a shooing motion at Mike through the narrowing gap.

Maybe, Mike considers, ambling back through the lobby and out onto the street, he should have gone into fake psychology instead. He’s willing to bet that Freud would have some interesting and wildly inaccurate things to say about why Mike is so desperate for his boss to strip him down and be mean to him.

He scuffs the sole of his oxford irritably against the filthy pavement and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket, taking a vindictive sort of pleasure in the knowledge that Harvey would despair for the way he’s ruining the expertly tailored lines of his suit if he were here to offer comment. The knuckles of his left hand brush a thin, hard edge of plastic and he fishes Lola’s fake I.D. out into the crisp morning light.

It really is a quality forgery, which Mike would be impressed by if he weren’t currently dangling helplessly over a precipice of Lola’s crafting. It’s almost good enough to get past -

Mike freezes, staring wide-eyed into Lola’s placid face, backlit and washed out by the sun.

“Oh,” Mike breathes, and the sound reverberates into a choppy spill of crowing laughter, echoing loud through the corridor of looming office buildings. He catches some weird looks from the people in line at the bagel truck, but he’s too busy flagging down a cab to pay them much mind.

 

***

 

He directs the driver to a cross street in Midtown East, making a point to pay in cash, then hops a bus to SoHo, where he kills twenty minutes waiting in line at a trendy little coffee shop for a cup of overpriced blonde roast and a heinously dry Danish before jumping on the subway. He rides it all the way to Morningside and then takes the E back to the station at 34th and Eighth, absently hoping that Donna was joking about uploading a GPS tracking app to his phone, because if she did - and Mike knows better than to put it past her - he’s not sure how he’s going to explain this one.

He decides that’s a problem to deal with in the future and focuses instead on strolling casually through the Garment District until he comes to a dark, narrow entryway set a few feet back along a row of mismatched shops and apartments that have fallen out of code. He skips down the uneven stairs to a peeling, faded door covered by a whitewashed safety grate and presses the buzzer beside it five times - short, long, short, short, long again - then settles himself against the wall to wait.

At eleven minutes on the dot after Mike’s final buzz, a suspicious tenor crackles over the intercom, staticky and nervous.

“Chto vy smeyetes’?”

“Really, man?” Mike asks into the grimy speaker box.

 _“Chto vy smeyetes’?”_ the voice repeats firmly.

“Fine,” Mike sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He lifts his arms in a shallow, performative gesture and recites, “Ya smeyus’ nad soboy.”

“Ugh, your accent is atrocious,” the voice mutters, and the impressive padlock on the safety grate unlatches with an electric hum.

Mike rolls his eyes and lets himself in.

It’s not so much an apartment as it is a sort of residential warehouse space - there are gilt-framed paintings in an array of sizes and subject matter leaned in a sloping stack against the far wall, and a set of green velvet settees jammed under the front window, piled so high with books that the floor-to-ceiling curtains behind them are barely visible. The walls are hung with a variety of knick-knacks - masks and mirrors and etchings, all threaded through with vintage movie posters and masterful charcoal studies of famous works of art. Mike counts seven clocks just at a glance - one grandfather, two cuckoo, and four more that he couldn’t begin to guess at the provenance of, though they’re undoubtedly much-desired in certain circles. There’s a glittering crystalline chandelier laid delicately across the seat of an impressive wingback chair with what looks to be a chest-high jade statue of a dragon beside it.

In the middle of the opulent hodge-podge stands a man, shorter than Mike and stockier, mostly bald, with blue eyes just a few shades off Mike’s. He’s in a striped shirt and black slacks with a garish scarf wrapped around his neck, peering out from behind a sleek pair of rectangular glasses. He has a thick leather-bound book tucked under one arm and does not seem especially delighted to see Mike standing amongst his strange little trove of misbegotten treasures.

“With your considerable information processing talents, I would think you’d be better at foreign languages,” the man says reproachfully.

“Hey, Mozzie,” Mike greets, ignoring him. He pitches his voice a little higher and replies to himself with a goofy twang, “Well, howdy, Mike! What brings my favorite cousin by on this fine morning?”

“You’re my only cousin,” Mozzie corrects. He jabs a finger in Mike’s direction. “And I’ve never said ‘howdy’ in my life. Except for that thing in Texas, but those were dire circumstances and I scrubbed the footage afterward.”

He sets the book down on a low, wooden end-table with a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlay, next to a collection of vintage silver hair combs and a sparkling pair of sapphire earrings. It’s an even bet as to whether they’re quality costume jewelry or priceless heirlooms. Mozzie has a weird affinity for Swarovski that nobody has been able to break him of for love or money, despite some impressive efforts.

“Were you followed?”

Mike rolls his eyes again. “No, Mozz, I wasn’t followed.” He considers, and then, because he might be here to throw himself on Mozzie’s mercy, but he can’t quite resist the pleasure of riling him up first, “I might have been tracked by my boss’s assistant. She’s kind of a hobbyist blackmailer.”

“Name?” Mozzie demands, brow furrowed.

“Donna.”

“Just Donna?”

Mike snorts. “There’s nothing ‘ _just_ ’ about Donna.”

“Is she new?” Mozzie squints.

“Nah, she’s been around forever,” Mike drawls, because he knows the implication that Mozzie’s intricate web of snitches, informants, and bad-tempered tattletales might have overlooked a longtime key player in the secrets trade will send the man into a minor tizzy. Mozzie looks faintly stricken, caught somewhere between intrigued curiosity and affronted alarm.

“What’s her specialty?”

“Corporate espionage,” Mike says, bending to study a folio lying open on a nearby table. There’s an age-yellowed etching inside, of [a man on horseback spearing some kind of serpentine monstrosity.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon#/media/File%3AAlbrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Saint_George_Killing_the_Dragon_\(NGA_1943.3.3597\).jpg) It’s a Dürer, Mike is pretty sure, although he couldn’t say whether it’s the original piece or an expert duplication. With Mozzie, it’s better not to assume one way or the other.

Mozzie’s is a long, tragic story that they don’t like to discuss much, but the broad strokes are:

A young woman - Naomi Winters, baby sister of Mike’s mother, Nina Ross née Winters, who Mike never had the pleasure of knowing - comes into a slew of mostly benign but socially inappropriate vices in her late teen years. Her family is ill-equipped to deal with these unexpected deviations. She skips town to save them all the trouble of coping with one another, because she’s wise enough to recognize that sometimes loving is easier at a distance. For the next several years she sends the occasional postcard, but has otherwise mysteriously vanished into thin air for all intents and purposes, despite her family’s best efforts to track her down.

Things happen, as they do, and she finds herself imminently responsible for a child for whom she wants nothing but the best. Knowing she can’t deliver on the best, Naomi leaves her son - much beloved, despite their brief acquaintance - on the doorstep of an orphanage in the hopes that they might find him someone who can give him a better opportunity, with nothing to remember her by but a teddy bear named Mozart, a hereditary astigmatism, and a whole lot of questions.

Mike doesn’t know how his aunt died, isn’t even sure that his mother knew before the collision that claimed her life in a moment of terrible, dovetailing tragedy, but he knows that she did, way before Mozzie was old enough to start trying to track her down only to stumble upon Mike instead. Mozzie’s never offered up many details about his childhood, preferring to exist in Mike’s mind - and, maybe, his own - as the strange man who appeared suddenly one afternoon at the door of the third-floor walkup Mike and his grandmother shared, claiming to be a long-lost cousin and asking if he could come in to chat.

Mike - being smarter than most fifteen-year-olds but just as susceptible to the pull of curiosity and twice as reckless, besides - had invited him in, to which Mozzie’s response was a swift, soft cuff to the back of the head, a warning about letting unknown quantities into his private living space, and a promise to return after Mike’s grandmother got off shift so they could all sit down and have a proper conversation where no teenage boys were left alone in the company of mysterious men they’d never met before.

He’s been a fairly standard fixture on the periphery of Mike’s life since then, popping in for the more major holidays and occasionally doing Mike favors he doesn’t ask for, or giving Mike advice that he pretends to ignore and eventually accepts with bad grace. Gram thinks he’s a bit of an odd duck - which is a quaint and supremely politic way to describe Mozzie’s many overt neuroses - but she likes him well enough and invited him openly into their shattered little family unit all those years ago. Mike isn’t quite vain enough to believe that Mozzie stuck around New York solely to look after him but he flatters himself to hope that his well-being might have been a consideration.

Mozzie mutters Donna’s name under his breath a few times, thinking, and then announces, “I’ve never heard of her.”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have,” Mike agrees with a nod.

“Is she hassling you?”

Mike blinks, and looks up into Mozzie’s serious, sober face.

“What?” he asks. “No. I mean, yeah, Donna hassles me all the time, but I’m pretty sure it’s a sign of affection. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Okay,” Mozzie drawls, slow and thoughtful. “Well, Thanksgiving isn’t for another three months and nobody’s dead, so - ”

He blanches suddenly, face going sheet-white, and gropes sickly for the nearest sturdy handhold as his knees wobble underneath him.

“ _Oh, God,”_  he gulps, voice thin and horrible. “Don’t tell me Edith - ”

“No!” Mike yelps, jumping upright and hurrying forward to get a hand under Mozzie’s elbow before he goes ass over teakettle into his lovingly hoarded bric-a-brac. “No, Gram is fine, Mozzie. She’s fine. I’ve got her set up in a swanky new care home, she’s great.”

“Oh Jesus,” Mozzie wheezes, clutching Mike’s arm hard enough to bruise. “Oh thank God, okay. I’m alright.” He swats at Mike with his free hand. “Back off, you’re wrinkling my sleeve.”

Mike releases his grip, both hands raised palm-up, placating, and shakes his head, settling back to lean his hip against a hand-carved oak dining table.

“Silk is a very delicate fabric,” Mozzie mutters, brushing at his arm like Mike might have stained it with his touch. “If the fibers pull out of alignment that’s the whole shirt, ruined. Now,” he turns to address Mike with all the gravity a semi-agoraphobic conspiracy theorist can muster, “what do you want?”

“I need a favor,” Mike explains, curling his fingers over the table’s edge.

“And you’re actually asking?” Mozzie raises a suspicious eyebrow. “What did you do?” His gaze narrows. “ _Trevor?”_

Mike winces. As much as Harvey loathes Trevor, they might as well be boon companions in comparison to the way Mozzie feels about him. Mozzie doesn’t hate many people, as a general rule, but on the rare occasions when somebody does earn his ire, he’s committed and thorough in its application.

“He’s only peripherally involved,” Mike hedges. “It was technically his idea to start with, but it’s become so far removed from that he might as well be in, I don’t know. Montana.”

“Montana?”

“As a random, non-specific example of a location where Trevor could, theoretically, be,” Mike confirms, because part of effectively communicating with Mozzie is couching actual information in enough obfuscatory detail that he has to work for it. Mozzie blinks at him.

“Okay,” he nods slowly, understanding. “If it’s not a Trevor thing, what kind of thing is it?”

Mike presses his lips into a thin, thoughtful line and squints consideringly into the middle distance.

“Remember that conversation we had when I graduated high school, about how it would be better for us both if I kept my nose clean and left the uh, family business up to you?”

“The one we had before you got blacklisted from Harvard for selling the answers to a calculus test?” Mozzie clarifies with a sharp, fond smirk.

“That’s the one,” Mike agrees. Harvard is, admittedly, still something of a tender spot, but if your family can’t tease you about your biggest regrets and greatest failures, who can?

He wiggles his foot in an awkward, jittery burst of unexpected nerves.

“It’s possible,” he says slowly, “that, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I might have accidentally stumbled my way into the family business, by certain definitions thereof.”

Mozzie frowns. “ _Mike._ ”

“Accidentally!” Mike repeats. “Honestly! I was running from some undercover cops - ”

“Why were you running from the cops?” Mozzie interrupts. “I’ve told you before, you don’t run from the cops, you _evade_ them. Running is what street criminals do, and it’s why they get caught.”

“Yeah, well, I _evaded_ my way into an interview for a corporate law firm here in town, and they hired me.” Mike grins and enacts jazz hands, somewhat more subdued than usual, for fear of shattering priceless China if he moves too much.

“You conned your way into a job as a lawyer?”

“Not exactly,” Mike sighs. “My boss knows I don’t have the credentials, but I did a little showboating with my whole,” he waggles his fingers toward his head, “Beautiful Mind thing, and he agreed to help me pull it off.”

“‘Help’ in this context meaning?”

“He bankrolled a research excursion to Harvard, bought me a new wardrobe, and brought me on as his protégée.”

Mozzie stares. Mike stares back.

“I can’t tell if you’re little orphan Annie in this scenario or Vivian Ward.”

“I consider myself to be more of the Will Hunting school,” Mike demurs.

“Of course you do,” Mozzie sighs. “So, what? You just walked in, introduced yourself, and asked a suit you’d only just met if he wanted to engage in a criminal partnership to commit fraud against the U.S. justice system?”

“No, I spilled like fifty grand in weed on the floor and challenged him to a debate, during which I owned his ass with an obscure loophole in accounting law,” Mike says coolly. He lifts his chin, petulant. “ _Then_ I asked if he wanted to engage in a criminal partnership to commit fraud against the U.S. justice system.”

Mozzie considers him for a long moment through a narrow squint. “He’s hot, isn’t he?”

“Oh my God,” Mike sighs, burying his face in his hands.

“What? That’s how the kids are talking nowadays!”

“I’m twenty-nine!”

When Mike lifts his head, Mozzie is giving him a look that very succinctly conveys his belief that Mike just proved his point for him. Mike scowls.

“You’re going to ask if I think my boss is hot but not why I had a briefcase full of weed?”

Mozzie rolls his eyes.

“It’s the more salient of the two points,” he says. “Historical data suggests that the only reason you would have been stupid enough to cart felony quantities of drugs into a police sting rhymes with ‘ever’ and has apparently been banished to the Midwest by nefarious methods I cannot wait to ascertain.”

“Harvey sent him away,” Mike explains, because it’ll be better to pull this particular bandage off at speed, while the whole sordid affair is still raw in his mind. Plus, if he’s lucky, it might also distract Mozzie enough that he forgets about ferreting out Mike’s doomed crush. “I bailed Trevor out of county lock-up a couple weeks ago. His weed hookups found out and tried to extort me for some money he owed, so Harvey handled them and served Trevor with a one-way ticket.”

“Harvey is your boss?” Mozzie asks, and lifts his eyebrows, impressed, when Mike nods in confirmation. “Huh. Not a total idiot, at least, if he kicked Trevor to the curb. Lower level peons like that can be violent and unpredictable so he must be charismatic, to talk his way around somebody else’s debt. And, apparently, hot enough to completely rob you of all sanity.”

“That’s not - ” Mike starts, but Mozzie cuts him a significant look. Mike feels a gentle flood of heat prickle in his face and silently curses his fair complexion.

“Okay, fine,” he groans. “He’s hot. Insanely hot. He’s also an asshole, as evidenced by the fact that he strong-armed Trevor out of the state on a whim, and he’s the best closer in the city. Maybe on the whole Eastern seaboard. ‘Charismatic’ doesn’t quite cut it.”

Mozzie takes this all in and sighs mournfully. “My little cousin, in bed with a suit.”

“It’s usually a three-piece, if that makes it any better,” Mike offers, because if you’re betting on a bad hand you might as well go all-in. “And he wears them _very_ well.”

Mozzie stares him down for a second, and huffs a low, aggrieved sigh. “This is Neal, all over again.”

Mike, already intimately acquainted with the many sins of Neal Caffrey - who’s a startlingly nice guy, for a convicted felon - settles in to weather the inevitable bout of hand-wringing that usually follows Mozzie’s invocation of the con-man’s name.

“It was bad enough that you wanted to actually _be_ a lawyer, but I figured, hey! Everyone has their quirks,” Mozzie sighs, pacing awkwardly through a cluttered aisle between piles of curio with his arms crossed over his chest. “Besides, I thought it might come in handy someday with certain, you know, _things.”_

His gaze flickers to a nearby medley of wooden crates that appear to have been branded with a vaguely European-looking seal, complete with swastika. Mike decides he probably doesn’t want to know.

“But _partnering up_ with a lawyer? Giving him that kind of leverage over you?” Mozzie wheels around and jabs a finger in Mike’s direction. “I know I missed a number of your formative years, but I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Mutually assured destruction?” Mike offers.

“Oh, of course!” Mozzie agrees, unimpressed. “Let’s model our first ever criminal venture after a highly criticized principle of hostile global diplomacy that devolved so wildly the U.S. government had to fake putting a man on the moon to maintain control of the situation!”

He spins on his heel and starts stalking away again, and then turns and wanders back, and away and back, a couple of times, muttering under his breath all the while. After a moment, he stops and looks over.

“How deep into it are you?”

“I’ve been on staff a few months,” Mike says. “And, Mozz? I’m _really_ good at it. I’ve learned a ton, already, and I’ve helped a _lot_ of people.”

Mozzie flaps a hand at him.

“Sure, yes, Saint Michael the Just, patron of beleaguered capitalists everywhere. I welcome your imminent canonization. Oh,” he moans miserably, hovering in front of the door and cupping his chin in his palms, “why are you only coming to me with this now? I would have told you what a bad idea it was from the outset, or at least given you a better cover.” His eyes go wide and horrified. “Please tell me you didn’t use your real name.”

Mike winces. “And my social security number.”

Mozzie doesn’t swear, because Mozzie might be high strung but he’s not uncouth. Instead, he makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, clenching his fists around nothing in particular, and looks up at the ceiling. After a few minutes of deep, metered breathing, he strolls over to the door and pauses with one hand on the knob, scrubbing the other tiredly over his face.

“This has to be some kind of karmic retribution for atrocities I committed in a past life. Why else would I be surrounded by tender-heart martyrs who insist on engaging in trysts with _suits?_ ” He grits the last word past his teeth like it’s a slur. “You coming?”

Mike blinks, startled, and realizes that Mozzie is watching him expectantly.

“You clearly have bigger problems than just making terrible life choices, or you wouldn’t be asking for my help,” he explains, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, “but I need at least half a bottle of Bordeaux before we get into it and _Mila_ does an outstanding croque-madame. If we hurry, we should beat the lunch rush.”

Mike, whose only sustenance so far today has been a burnt cup of coffee, a disappointing pastry, and a gratuitous helping of Harvey’s derision, scrambles to his feet, hurries over, and wonders absently if he can bill this as a working lunch.

 

***

 

“White-hats,” Mozzie says darkly, once Mike has outlined the whole sorry tale for him. He’s added a floppy beige bucket hat to his already eclectic ensemble and somehow looks less ridiculous than he had before they decided to brave the weekday brunch crowd.

He stabs viciously at his salad, spearing some arugula and a wedge of roasted beet, both sprinkled liberally with goat cheese and a vinaigrette that smells like honey even from across the table.

“They think they’re so much better than the rest of us because their,” a thoughtful beat, “ _extracurricular activities_ are supposedly motivated by social altruism.”

He waves the fork at Mike and nearly loses its contents in his enthusiasm.

“Look at Robin Hood. He was just as guilty as the rest of the Merry Men, as all the poor beggars in Locksley, really. He landed a titular role because he had panache and his legend endures because understood the utility of reputation, but at the end of day, what good did he really do for anybody but himself?”

“Hear, hear,” Mike mutters, and drains the remainder of his third bottomless mimosa. Champagne, it turns out, is way more delicious when you can afford to buy the good stuff.

His plate is mostly picked over by now, just a straggling, solitary crust and a few yellow smears of egg yolk. The croque-madame had been just as magical as Mozzie said it would be, and the duck fat sweet potato fries Mike ordered on the side were utterly transcendent. He’s very nearly tempted to undo his belt a notch to accommodate for them.

Now that he’s not running purely on sugar, caffeine, and the sting of judgment, Mike is finally starting to feel a little better about being hung out to dry by a self-styled vigilante. He expresses as much aloud and Mozzie snorts.

“It’s still embarrassing,” he assures. “You _should_ be embarrassed, diving headfirst into a sophisticated,” he pauses, “ _project_ like this without doing adequate legwork. It was sloppy. You’re lucky it hasn’t blown up in your face yet. Frankly, I’m amazed you didn’t have to call me from the pokey within that first week.”

“It’s the optimism, I think, that really makes your advice valuable,” Mike says wistfully.

Mozzie takes a healthy swig of whatever expensive, dry red he settled on.

“If you wanted somebody to hold your hand and tell you everything was going to be okay, you should have called Neal.”

“I don’t have Neal’s number,” Mike points out.

“Sure you do,” Mozzie disagrees. “Steve Tabernacle.”

“I deleted that number!” Mike says, affronted. “I thought it was someone I met while I was drunk. Why didn’t you tell me it was Neal?”

“Better question: why are you going around giving drunk strangers your number?” Mozzie replies, smug around a mouthful of salad.

Mike rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother answering, picking absently at the napkin he’d left balled up on the table.

“Everything _is_ going to be okay, though, right?” he asks hesitantly after a few minutes.

Blind reassurance isn’t really Mozzie’s thing, which is as much a boon as it is a curse in moments like this, when Mike really needs to hear the truth but also desperately hopes it’s good news. Mozzie hums thoughtfully while he chews.

“I can’t say, in the long term,” he admits, sounding almost apologetic for his inability to predict the future. “Embedding yourself in a venture like this is risky, especially at the depths you’re trawling, but I’m confident we can at least get your identification issues resolved by the end of the day. Sooner, if I can get a hold of some people before two p.m., but I’ve got to see a guy about an exotic reptile and dig my CB radio out of storage before I do anything else.”

Mike is so blissfully, instantaneously buoyed with relief that he’s a little worried he’ll float away.

“Oh, thank fuck,” he breathes, planting his elbows on the tabletop and dropping his head between them, shoulders hunched forward and hands curled protectively over the back of his neck. “That’s so great, Mozz, you have no idea.”

“No names,” Mozzie mutters, out of habit. Mike waves him off, and sits back up when his phone starts chiming aggressively in his pocket.

It’s Harvey’s cell number, and Mike grimaces even as he answers, “Mike Ross.”

“Where are you?”

Mike glances over at Mozzie and supplies, “Dentist.”

Mozzie shoots him a thumbs-up.

“That’s funny,” Harvey says. He sounds distinctly unimpressed, voice clipped in the way it always gets when he’s toeing the line of real anger. Mike’s belly swoops at the sharp edge, and he shifts in his seat. At the rate things are going, he runs the very real risk of popping a stiffy next time Harvey yells at him. He can only hope they’ll be somewhere private when it happens. “The Family Tracker app puts you at a surprisingly trendy eatery in the West Village.”

“I can’t believe you’re GPS-stalking me.”

“Technically Donna’s GPS-stalking you,” Harvey corrects. “I’m just reaping the benefits of her absolute disrespect of your personal privacy. Why aren’t you working Lola Jensen?”

Mike sighs, exasperated, and pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I _am_ working Lola Jensen.”

“I thought you were at brunch with your dentist.” Harvey pauses. “You know that’s not a thing, right? People don’t interact socially with their healthcare professionals.”

“Yeah, well, we’re tight like that,” Mike replies, because he knows it’ll piss Harvey off.

“I gave you one job, Mike,” Harvey growls, low and rough and warning.

 _Bingo_ , Mike thinks, and desperately wills himself not to get a boner at a restaurant with his cousin. As if his attention was blatantly summoned, Mozzie looks over, curious, and mouths, “Suit?”

Mike nods to him and then drawls, “I’m doing that one job, Harvey.”

“Over brunch,” Harvey reiterates, obviously not believing a word Mike says. “With your _dentist_.”

“Mr. Peacock, in the dining room, with the lead pipe,” Mike says snidely. He can almost hearHarvey scowling.

“Mike - ” he starts, but Mike cuts him off.

“Okay, he’s not my dentist,” he admits. “But he’s _a_ dentist - ” something of a misleading truth, but what Harvey doesn’t know probably won’t kill him - “and he really is helping me work an angle on Lola.”

“What angle?” Harvey demands. Mike can cleary picture the furious furrow in his brow, the soft, dark downturn of his mouth, the broad, tight line of his shoulders.

He shifts again and miraculously doesn’t blush at the knowing - and deeply unimpressed - eyebrow Mozzie lifts at him.

“Redistribution of leverage,” he says, after a moment’s consideration.

“Explain.”

“Later,” Mike promises. “All will become clear, Harvey, I just can’t talk about it right now, okay?”

“Why not?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” he sighs. Mozzie darts him a suspicious look, and Mike shakes his head adamantly. He doesn’t want to put Mozzie off by intimating, even obliquely, that he has any intention of blowing Mozzie’s cover, even if he thinks they could probably trust Harvey with that knowledge.

“I’ll expect a brief and thorough summary when you’re back at the office at 4 P.M. with Lola Jensen securely handled,” Harvey says, and hangs up on him.

Mike tosses his head back to groan at the ceiling and tucks his phone away.

“You fired?” Mozzie asks hopefully. “Because that could be a blessing in disguise.”

“Still gainfully employed,” Mike supplies with a shake of his head. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Harvey wants this thing wrapped up by four o’clock.” Mike shakes his head again, feeling abjectly hopeless, and drops his face into his hands, sighing through his fingers, “That’s not enough time. Mozzie, what am I going to do?”

Mozzie pushes one sleeve up to glance at the watch on his wrist - simple and lightly scuffed gold face, slightly dusky leather band, probably cost him $3 from a street vendor. He presses his mouth into a thin, thoughtful line and then turns a surprisingly sharp gaze on Mike.

“What do you know about Guatemalan beaded lizards?”

Mike blinks and lets his hands drop. “How long do I have to Google them?”

Mozzie nods approvingly at this answer, retrieving his napkin from his lap and wiping at his mouth even as he twists around in his seat to flag down a server. He asks politely for their check and then shifts his attention back to Mike.

“I can push the radio thing to tonight, and if you’ll play second fiddle with my reptile guy, we can have that sewn up in a half-hour.”

“And then on to Lola?” Mike asks. Mozzie nods.

“That would be - ” Mike huffs a soft, elated laugh. “I’ll owe you one, Mozz. Big time.”

“Don’t hand out blank checks, kid,” Mozzie warns around a grin. “You never know what people will come back trying to cash out for.”

He intercepts the check folio as the server goes to lay it on the table and slides it across to Mike, who takes it without complaint and drops two fifties inside without bothering to read the total, too giddy at the prospect of getting out from under the blade of Lola’s rapidly falling guillotine to care about blowing a hundred bucks on brunch.

“Thank you, Mozzie,” Mike says, reaching over to curl his hand around Mozzie’s forearm and give it a squeeze.

Mozzie shakes him off, looking pleased and harassed as he rises to his feet, grousing, “You want to thank me, you’ll stop saying my name in public.”

Mike smirks and stands, buttoning his jacket and leaning over the table to insist, “ _Seriously._ Thank you.”

Mozzie waves a hand.

“That’s what family’s for,” he says breezily. “Now, if anyone asks you’re a herpetologist from the Brooklyn Zoo. Your name is Ian Cransworth, and you have a weakness for slow ponies with punny names. We met in Indianapolis, back in 2004, and - ”

 _Family, indeed,_ Mike thinks, trailing after Mozzie and nodding studiously as he babbles his way through a lively and convoluted backstory. It’s at moments like these that Mike remembers that, for all his quirks and eccentricities, Mozzie is very, _very_ good at his job.

Mike smirks.

Lola Jensen isn’t going to know what hit her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (And to those wondering: yes, I do imagine that Harvey can tell how much Mike enjoys it when he’s an asshole, and he almost certainly takes shameful advantage of that fact at a nonspecific point in the future.)


End file.
